chef workstation setup softwares required

Question

I am trying to execute chef commands and build the server for that I did below setup on MacOS but observed that I need to have vagrant and virtualbox but I am not sure if I need to install it on host macOS machine or Virtual machine. Could you please suggest on this.

Setup which I did so far is as below:

• On Mac OS I have installed VirtualBox and created a base ubuntu Virtual Machine

• Then Inside virtual machine having ubuntu as OS installed ChefDk, Hosted chef server setup, knife and git

• created chef-repo repository

• In order to complete setup, Do I need to install vagrant and one more instance of Virtualbox inside virtual machine on ubuntu OS and do I need any additional installation?

Answer 1

Honestly, the question is a little confusion on your objective. But from a high level, i can assume that you are trying to get started with chef using the hosted chef server. First i agree with @StephenKing pointing you to the learn chef site. That's a good starting point. But here are some things that should clear up your question:

1. Typically there will be a development workstation. In your case its the MacBook. This is where you will install chefDK and write your fancy cookbooks. It should have the chef-repo, knife.rb etc to talk with the chef server.

2. Once your initial cookbook writting is over, you upload the cookbook and other params like environment, data_bags, roles etc to the chef server (in the chef-org)

3. Its here you need a node to apply your cookbook. As a starter, use some nodes from a VPS that's far more easier rather then trying to use vagrant nodes or something. As the saying goes "one step at a time". Do not try to learn chef and vagrant or even more (which is what you will encounter with chef) at the same time.

4. Once you have the node, bootstrap the node to your chef-org where the cookbooks were uploaded. Then run chef-client on the node.

And you are on your way to the chef world.

Answer 2

Install ChefDK and Vagrant as well as VirtualBox on your workstation. This allows you to use any editor/IDE to edit cookbooks and then provision a VM using Vagrant and Virtualbox (or other supported hypervisors).

In general, I would recommend to follow Learn Chef.